Jeff VanSteenburg started on the pole and led the entire 25-lap distance to capture his first Eastern States championship in the Capital Region Sprint Agency (CRSA) 305 sprint car feature event on ...

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Vansteenburg wins

Jeff VanSteenburg started on the pole and led the entire 25-lap distance to capture his first Eastern States championship in the Capital Region Sprint Agency (CRSA) 305 sprint car feature event on Saturday.

VanSteenburg was able to stay ahead of the rest of the 23-car field throughout the race despite five cautions that depleted the field to seven cars.

Mario Page, who won an event here earlier this season, finished in second place, with Scott Flammer, John Matrafailo and Middletown's Scott Goodrich rounding out the top five.

Dippel, a 14-year-old student at Wallkill High School, was the class of a 27-car field as he grabbed his first Eastern States crown in the 50-lap main event during the 52nd annual Weekend Racing Festival. It was his third win at OCFS in 2013 and pushed his victory total to 11 for the season.

"This was just an amazing way to end my career in the Crate division,'' Dippel said. "This car was just awesome tonight. It was just on rails, and the way to go was on the bottom. I was able to run on the outside, but the inside groove was much better as the race progressed.''

Dippel, who plans on moving up to the small-block modified class in 2014, started on the pole by virtue of his quick qualifying time of 21.913 seconds (102.7 mph) around the five-eighths mile track. He maintained those speeds during the feature, with a fast clocking of 102.975 mph as he lapped all of his competition up to fifth place.

"The track was in great shape and I could pretty much drive it wherever I wanted to,'' Dippel said. "I just couldn't be happier with the way this car performed. But this is it for the crates. I'll be moving up next season and plan on racing Fridays at Albany-Saratoga. We're going to chase the ROC (Race of Champions) Series and plan on traveling on Saturdays to different places.''

L.J. Lombardo of Danbury, Conn., posted the second-quickest lap in time trials as his clocking of 22.397 seconds placed him outside of Dippel for the start of the 50-lap grind. But Lombardo's bid for a win didn't last too long.

Dippel and Lombardo's cars made contact off the second turn at the start of the event, and Lombardo was forced to retire after he got tangled up with Frank Venezia, Darrell Ford and Thomas Strupp.

A series of cautions early in the event knocked nine cars out of competition just seven laps into the race, and Anthony Perrego was able to get past Dippel for a brief lead following a fifth-lap restart.

"My car got a little loose on the restart and he was able to get ahead of me,'' Dippel said. "I was kind of surprised he kept giving me the outside for the restarts after he took the lead. I was able to drive right around him, but the cautions kept putting me back.''

But Dippel finally found his way around Perrego coming off the second turn after several tries to get the eighth lap in the record books and then began putting quite a bit of distance between himself and the rest of the pack.

Dippel was able to maneuver in and out of lapped traffic like a seasoned veteran as the race progressed and just put sixth-place running Christian Rumsey down a lap when Wayne Devantoy caused the final caution of the event with 36 laps completed.

Dippel then went on to claim the 18th overall victory of his sportsman career, which began at Accord Speedway in 2011, and picked up the first-place prize of $1,000. Perrego finished more than two seconds behind Dippel in second place, with OCFS champion Brian Krummel, Andrew Reeves and Shane Jablonka, in Lombardo's back-up car, rounding out the top five.

Dippel claimed his first crate sportsman win at Accord on Sept. 9, 2011. He won three times at Accord last season and three rookie crate races at OCFS as well. He won six times en route to capturing the track title at Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon this season.